perfect rail and stile joint

[andy photenas]

Hello all, I have been wrestling with getting what i think a perfect joint in rail and stile should look like. So i moved from routers to shapers and now i have 3 older but well made shapers 3hp delta and min max. I end up making shaker stile doors very often. so I am asking about the only cutters set I have used to date which is a shaker set from mlcs it cost about $180 bucks for the set of bits to make rail and stile cut not the panel cutter.
after a lot trying i relized that the top cutter on one of the bits was not bored properly and i returned the set (the hole was at a slight angle)
the second i said what was wrong they knew about the issue. This makes me not trust there quality as you can guess!
so I have my new bits(from the same company) on my bigger machines and the joints look good when clamped but i need to clamp them to get them tight. The joint always looks open on the top before i clamp. My question is : Is it normal for the joint to need clamping to look tight?
Please any input would be great! I will gladly buy a new bit set from another company but dont want to waste $200-$800 for a rail and stile set if i dont need to. (ya freeborn tools are that expensive!)

[Rod Sheridan]

Hi Andy, I only make Shaker style doors.

I use an adjustable Grover for the groove and a larger adjustable Grover with the cutters flipped over with a spacer inside to cut both cheeks of the tenon in one pass.

It’s also important that your spindle is at right angles to the table. You can check with the shaper locked out by gently clamping a straight edge between spindle spacers, rotate the spindle by hand and measure the gap to the table.

Regards, Rod.

[brent stanley]

Hello all, I have been wrestling with getting what i think a perfect joint in rail and stile should look like. So i moved from routers to shapers and now i have 3 older but well made shapers 3hp delta and min max. I end up making shaker stile doors very often. so I am asking about the only cutters set I have used to date which is a shaker set from mlcs it cost about $180 bucks for the set of bits to make rail and stile cut not the panel cutter.
after a lot trying i relized that the top cutter on one of the bits was not bored properly and i returned the set (the hole was at a slight angle)
the second i said what was wrong they knew about the issue. This makes me not trust there quality as you can guess!
so I have my new bits(from the same company) on my bigger machines and the joints look good when clamped but i need to clamp them to get them tight. The joint always looks open on the top before i clamp. My question is : Is it normal for the joint to need clamping to look tight?
Please any input would be great! I will gladly buy a new bit set from another company but dont want to waste $200-$800 for a rail and stile set if i dont need to. (ya freeborn tools are that expensive!)

Hi Andy, many of the leading manufacturers send instructions with their cutter heads on how to verify spindle alignment, exactly as Rod describes. It's a good idea to verify that first.

I also think you might be spending too much on tooling. Freeborn are great and I own some of their heads, but only for huge production runs. Rod and I (along with many users) both use limiter style cutterheads that allow you to buy only one head and carry out hundreds of different milling operations by just buying different, inexpensive knives for it. While you could execute the shaker-style joint with such a head, I do it similarly to Rod. The adjustable groover may cost you less than the freeborn head and will come in handy in many additional situations.

B

[Mark Daily]

Andy, to answer your question you shouldn’t need to clamp a joint to make it look tight.

[andy photenas]

Hello thanks for your input guys! So I went on youtube and tried to watch groover cutter vids. I cant seem to understand how you guys are using them to make rail and stile joints for doors?
I use a 6 piece set from mlcs and have not tried freeborn yet.
Do your joints look tight when hand fit ? Am i just getting to picky ? the joints look fine clamped up but i worry that the fact they need some pressure will cause problems later.

[Jeff Duncan]

Shaper tooling is expensive, that’s just how it is. Freeborn sets aren’t cheap, but in the overall scheme of things I’ve found them worth the expense. Once you get past 1 or 2 kitchens a year cheap tooling is working against you, not for you.
I run all Freeborn sets for cabinet doors on large shapers and the joints fit together without any pressure.

Good luck,
JeffD

[brent stanley]

Hello thanks for your input guys! So I went on youtube and tried to watch groover cutter vids. I cant seem to understand how you guys are using them to make rail and stile joints for doors?
I use a 6 piece set from mlcs and have not tried freeborn yet.
Do your joints look tight when hand fit ? Am i just getting to picky ? the joints look fine clamped up but i worry that the fact they need some pressure will cause problems later.

One thing you could try is clamping the joints just enough so everything looks nice, and then run a straight edge along the full rail and across the two stile joints to see if they're all coplanar. They should be and if not that could be a clue for you.

You should be able to just push the joints together and have them nice and snug.

[andy photenas]

you would think I would not need to keep learning so much after 13 years of this!
It took me a min to figure exactly what Rod ment about the straight edge but i get it now.
There is nearly 3/32 of an inch of light on the left of the spindle and touching on the right side!!!!
If anyone knows of a good link on how to set the spindle square let me know ill be getting dirty today i think. Thanks again for the input all i love this forum!

[brent stanley]

you would think I would not need to keep learning so much after 13 years of this!
It took me a min to figure exactly what Rod ment about the straight edge but i get it now.
There is nearly 3/32 of an inch of light on the left of the spindle and touching on the right side!!!!
If anyone knows of a good link on how to set the spindle square let me know ill be getting dirty today i think. Thanks again for the input all i love this forum!

It will depend on how the machine is made, but some just require shimming under the mounting points of the table to tilt it accordingly. Which of your machines it the offending machine?

B

[J.R. Rutter]

^^^ The Deltas (and similar designs) are notorious for this. The MiniMax spindle housing is actually bolted to the bottom of the table instead of just hanging around.

[lowell holmes]

I suggest you try a dove tail hand saw and make practice joints to perfect your style.

[J.R. Rutter]

I suggest you try a dove tail hand saw and make practice joints to perfect your style.

Are you a bot?

[Vince Shriver]

Are you a bot?

Thanks for the chuckle JR - made my morning!

[Jared Sankovich]

I suggest you try a dove tail hand saw and make practice joints to perfect your style.

Lol.. dovetailed cabinet doors.

[Peter Quinn]

I had an old delta whose spindle wasn't perpendicular to the table, cope and stick was never quite right. There are three points of contact where the spindle housing meets table, its a circular fight to chase out the error as they don't seem to be aligned in a way that makes it easy to correct. You shim one, it throws off the other. I got it pretty close using U shims from mcmaster but ultimately solved the problem by replacing the shaper. There was also a few thousands of chatter I could not chase out so save my life, added too much sanding time. My mini max t-40 has no such problems, spindle alignment was perfect and stays that way by design. Other shaper is a similar older italian machine, also stays perfect. I've used relatively inexpensive tooling from infinity that made perfect joints, shouldn't have to force a sharp set together, shouldn't be any day light between the joints. Can't speak to MLCS's QA. I never found any good practical resources to explain how to correct delta spindle alignment but its not a complicated mechanism, look below the table you can see whats happening, I attribute the "why" to design failure.